This paper presents a fuel saving double channel wing (FADCW) configuration for a propeller driven aircraft to reduce fuel consumption. In pursuit of this objective, FADCW configuration combines the tractor propeller layout and over-the-wing propeller layout. The basic idea is to improve the wing lift-to-drag ratio by taking advantage of the beneficial propeller influence on the wing. Based on a multi reference frame method solving Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes equations, the contrastive study of this configuration and a traditional tractor propeller-wing layout is conducted. It is shown that the propeller slipstream in the tractor propeller configuration leads to a 10.28% reduction in the wing lift-to-drag ratio. With the same reference wing area and the propeller rotation speed; however, the FADCW configuration can reduce the wing drag by 10.41% and increase its lift-to-drag ratio by 13.29%, which results in a 20.15% reduction in the fuel consumption compared with the traditional tractor propeller configuration. Makino and Nagai [5] revealed that the propeller slipstream can delay or eliminate the separation bubble on the wing surface and thereby increase the wing lift in a flow of low Reynolds number. A numerical simulation on the DEP aircraft conducted by Stoll et al. [6] indicated that distributed propeller slipstreams can augment the maximum lift coefficient of the wing to 5.2. Regarding the drag of a wing for a propeller driven aircraft, Kroo's analyses [7] showed that the propeller-wing interaction can reduce the wing drag obviously. However, Fratello et al.
Experimental measurements tested by[8] drew a contrary conclusion. Their experiment revealed that the wing drag with the propeller influence is five times larger than that of a clean wing. Through the wind tunnel test, Ma et al. [9] also found that the propeller increases the wing drag and decreases its lift-to-drag ratio considerably. Miranda and Brennan [10] studied a wingtip mounted propeller configuration using a vorticity model and they suggested that whether the propeller-wing interaction is beneficial will strongly depend on the propeller rotation direction and installation position. Therefore, the aerodynamic behavior of the wing, especially the variation of the drag, is very sensitive to the influence of the propeller slipstream; more attention should be paid to employing the favorable influence of the propeller on the wing and avoiding its disadvantageous impact as much as possible.In view of the important influence of the propeller on the wing, some authors [11][12][13] have made airfoil and wing shape optimizations considering the propeller interference to promote the aerodynamic performance of the wing and acquired many good results. However, these works mainly focused on the tractor propeller configurations, where only the influence of the slipstream behind the propeller disk was investigated; the potential favorable effects upstream of the propeller blade on the wing are rarely considered.The goal of the present work is to improve th...